Mach5

A bit late to the party, but speaking from my own limited experience, I think there is some value in these camps. Around 2000 I went through one based in Lorne as an 18-year-old, run by a mob that had apparently put multiple AFL clubs through their paces a few times. I often think back to the self-belief it gave me at a young age, in terms of what I was physically & mentally capable of. There was also a focus on problem solving when fatigued & at times I stood up, giving others belief in my ability at a time when I was struggling to find my place and emerge in a core group of men much older and more mature than me. Very suddenly, blokes who had never really given me the time of day, were saying hello & knew my name. All footy clubs have their cliques & it gave me a profile. I had a greater understanding of their capabilities and temperaments. Bonding not so much, but maybe it enabled bonding at a later stage. Most of all, I still go to Lorne & marvel at my ability to run up and down those steep hills repeatedly over the course of a few days, carrying logs & various other objects on my back. I had never considered myself capable of such feats & the exercise had me pushing well beyond where I thought my limits lay. Something I definitely would have drawn on had I taken my footy seriously & made a "career" of it. As others have touched on, those operating the camps have the biggest influence on the outcomes, second only to the participants themselves. Approaching it with a less than ideal mindset will produce a sub-optimal result. And the facilitators must obviously be competent at the service they are attempting to provide, rather than just blokes with SAS experience on their CV who think they can make an easy buck by bullying civilians for a few days. Personally, I'd expect someone like McCartney or Goodwin to have participated in multiple camps of this ilk and have a great understanding of the value and benefit to gained from them, with the right facilitators. Criticisms based on injuries are narrow-minded in my opinion, and they can just as easily happen at Gosch's.

He has a job solely because his brother plays for the cats, an oxygen thief.

Bumped into Whitfield today coming out of Hawker Hall. I looked at him like "I know you from somewhere..." and he looked like he'd seen a ghost and ran off. The kid didn't look like he was coping too well.

I got a 45 in chemistry and I stopped attending class halfway through out of protest, as I was talked into doing it as an extra unit instead of having spares. I'm no genius, so Filipovic getting 40-odd in a unit commonly referred to as "veggie maths" doesn't impress me.

Christ, setting the bar low.

Who did he go up against..? Walked past you at work today Cell, look like you could still play today. Isn't Spencer enough as a backup? I don't know of any better backups that are happy playing 2nd fiddle & don't have their eye on the door so they can be No. 1 elsewhere.

Got this image up on the MFC app ... Oops? (sorry about quality, had to reduce it to post & maybe went too far the other way)

Thanks for your input again Mark, but he's a fair way off breaking into the 22.

Gotta forever be referred to as DJ surely. No contest.

A bit optimistic I think. Also, I wouldn't trust MS to know our list all that well. Pretty well stocked in those areas he's trying to break into. After slotting Hogan, Garlett and Pedo/Weid into the forward line, Hannan would be competing with Watts, Petracca, Vanderberg, Harmes, Kennedy, Kent, Kennedy-Harris, Bugg, Trengove, maybe even someone like Brayshaw, Melksham or Vince who are squeezed out of the middle. Just can't see it happening.

Another great appointment. I've had the fortune of being in a position to have the odd conversation every now & then with Rooke whilst he was a development coach at Geelong. He's quiet and doesn't always say a lot, but what he does say is usually very direct and meaningful. He simply doesn't waste his words.

This says volumes!

Or that the people doing the list building are the same, and Goodwin like Roos lets other people do their jobs.

Biz?

Obvious salary dump to fit Deledio in. We were smart enough to make ourselves available to GWS when they were looking for someone with a bit of cap space.

I see a better version of Wagner.

If it's one thing this trade period has taught me, never sit back and assume MFC is done for the rest of the period. (if I didn't learn it from the sublime manoeuvring last year)

To be fair, that's like me saying my mate Dave from down the pub expects the deal will get done.

Not sure Hawks could claim they're worried about being "low-balled" for an old player with only a year or 2 left, when they essentially accepted pick 88 for Mitchell. Although, maybe the current supporter backlash for that has changed their opinion. Weak by them really. I think the Lewis move would be good for them even if it's only a 3rd rounder - they need cap space and to re-generate their list. And a guy like Lewis watching Vickery hack it up in losses on significantly more money will be a ticking time bomb. I kinda hope he stays...

One thing I think is often overlooked is that although we got Roos & PJ with arguable degrees of assistance from the AFL, few choose to acknowledge that without Neeld we wouldn't have Jason Taylor, and without Schwab we may not have Todd Viney, both of which are integral to our rebuilt list full of talent. Good luck to Brisbane, but I've not seen a revolution in their list management/recruitment department, and I think this could very well hold them back still.

If we were to get another mature backup ruck, Zach Clark would probably be my choice, but it'd be like getting a second Spencer.

Meh.

Bloody useless.

Really missed his presence in 2016. Can't wait to get him back after a strong preseason.

Anyway, I knew there was more to this than just losing matches - the players on teams that finish outside the 8 and go through, have a distinct advantage over teams that finish in the top 4. So Picken should win, but has he been consistently better than JPK? No, in the game he's played, Kennedy has been better, but Picken will likely shade him.